I have a lot of alts. But they're bad alts. They're somewhere between neglected and mediocre. The best geared is my priest, but she's nowhere near the level of my paladin, and I'm terribly inexperienced as a healer. Perhaps my DK is next, but he's not going to be impressing anyone anytime soon, especially since I switched to blood for tanking and have no rhythm to it at all.

Shintar's alt killed Arthas. Before her main. The idea astounded me. I can barely comprehend it when people have alts that can do the tier behind current. To have an alt at the current tier is mind-blowing. How do these people have good alts?

I wonder if its based on how much a person is connected to a character. I used to be Klepsacovic the Troll Shaman and that was me. It took literally months to stop being him and start being a paladin. It almost didn't happen, but we were short a tank that night. Still, they both did achievements and heroics and gathered badges, until one day my shaman just wasn't anymore. I became a paladin. My shaman hasn't even hit 80 and might never. Elemental feels weird, enhancement feels dumb, and you can't heal a mob to death. He may be in Orgrimmar forever, the enchanter with a Finkle's Lava Dredger, a fire hat, and absolutely no raid enchants.

My main isn't just my main. It's more like the leader. My alts are servants, sources of income or some desired item. They have professions to serve my main. To spend much gold on them is pointless. They exist to make gold. At best they are temporary distraction from burnout. They are not real characters, deserving of any investment beyond that which gives them profitable professions. It is the nightmare-made-virtual of everyone who fears economic tyranny: total control, not a single gem or gold piece allowed to slip out of the grasp of the main, not a single free idea or action. All are subservient to the Account, except for the leader, the Main.

She is a tyrant, my main, and paranoid beyond all belief. She knows that it was a stray raid which put her in power and will not let the same happen in turn. Besides weeklies and VoA, no other characters have seen a raid. They have no titles beside the Patient. Except that warlock... she is dangerous, with an old PvP title; only being on the wrong server, wrong faction, and having DPS queue times keep her in check.

The neglected alt is easiest to neglect while the spoiled rich main is easy to keep as a main.

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Anonymous
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my non priest alts are suffering from neglect. My 80 mage doesn't even have a weapon, and my 80 dwarf hunter flips her braid over her shoulder - maybe pats the pet, and logs off. Both my priests are in ICC weekly - and by chance and some luck in voa, and some badges my healing priest alt has 2 pieces of t10 - her healing set now rivels my mains offset - I didn't intend on having 2 raiding toons, but because Im only doing half the available content - and not working on hardmodes or progression in guilds - it's easy to juggle. I wouldn't call my main a tyrant, but her needs do come first. My alts sacrificed their hard earned frostbadges for Saronite when she needed them for her boots - even though they were all close to getting upgrades.

I totally see where you are coming from with this my druid became my main half way through BC replacing my pally and he is my main raid toon totally. My pally is a part geared level 80 without Dual Spec.Some of the guys in my guild have alts that run TOC 25 easily and one has a second fully ICC geared toon. I dont know how they do it I have enough trouble keeping track of my druid and his two specs I cant afford in time and gold to support two raiding toons.

Mine at least the 80's are good alts, sure I have some neglected ones as well, my Horde priest that has gone from 55-63 in 4 years, my 56 Horde rogue that has been neglected for more then 4 years since my first taste of mass pvp. But if their on alliance then the gold is their to spend, what else am I going to do wit it? I followed the same trail as you Horde shaman for the first year of wow and then making my Paladin my main. But the alt trail started early from having both my shaman and my Paladin in the newly opened ZG in the same week.

But I stopped raiding on my shaman but my warlock happened to reach 60 at the same time my guilds casual/alt run of mc was short of warlocks(ie none) I walked in their picked up 5 drops of felheart and have been alting ever since.

I didnt kill LK on alt first but I came pretty close, 25% best attempt. Why on my alt? because 2 holy Paladins is not really a good 10 man makeup.

I basically have two toons that matter, my PvE raiding paladin (I've always considered my highest level paladin my main, even when I wasn't doing much of anything with it) and my PvP Arena shaman. It kind of bothered me a month or so ago when my shaman's 5s team reached 1800 and I suddenly had a higher level of weapon on my PvP toon than my paladin. My alts (and there are many, several at 80) are mostly subservient to those two, but I'd rather take an alt and really learn it and progress it (to badge gear level, anyway) than do something like, say, get the Insane title. I enjoy knowing how other classes go about things.

I think there are two main personality styles involved here. One takes their main character and makes them as good as possible, eking out every last drop of dps/healing/threat they can.

The other style goes for breadth. Their main may only be at 85-90% efficiency, but they have 3, 4, 5 alts that are available for whatever situation arises, and most of them are at that 85-90% point as well.

I fall into the second category. I have 5 80s all in mostly full tier 9 and badge loot. Once they get to the point of "good enough" however, I lose interest in gearing them up anymore and start focusing on my others.

Aside from my 80s (druid, paladin, shaman, priest, warlock), I have a rogue at 79, DK at 77, and I'm deciding whether I want to bring up my 70 mage or 47 hunter next. The last character on my account is a warrior that my son uses occasionally. He's sitting at 67 and will be for a while.

Last night my guild was short a healer so I brought my holy paladin to the raid. We made fantastic time, clearing 11/12 with an hour to spare to work on the LK, and I was telling people that I would be horribly sad if I got Kingslayer on my paladin before my druid. (I didn't, at least not last night.)

My paladin is essentially the guild's backup healer though. Healer missing and we need a third? My paladin goes. So he has the exact same 11/12 progress our core raiders do. He has some ICC gear and 2-piece T10. I run heroics with him nearly every night I'm online and all his emblems go to purchasing his own gear (and not saronite for the AH ^_^).

I keep him well maintained because 1) he might be needed by the raid and 2) I just really like playing him. He's my "main" alt. If my raid didn't occasionally need him as backup I'd probably be pugging ICC 10s every week on him.

As I read comments I'm reminded of a major influence on alt progression: guild rules. It seems easier to play an alt which is on the same server: you can share a bank alt, AH price info, mail gold and materials, and avoid that tedious clicking of a few buttons to switch servers. An alt in a different guild might feel traitorous or like you're hiding. But if the alt is in the same guild, many guilds have "main before alt" rules, not just for loot, but for raid slots, so in all but the most dire of situations, the alt won't be going to a guild raid.

@Copernicus: you forgot a third - I have an 80 tank who is quite well geared, a 76 priest who is shadow now but leveled to 70 as holy, a lock who was my main, but is stuck at 70, plus a few other low level ally alts. I also have my SAN mage who is 42 now, and I havent really touched my 'main' characters since SAN started, except to check post and buy an heirloom item to mail to my mage.

I haven't decided what I am going to do with the priest or lock come cata; I expect I will level my tank to 85, and I plan on leveling my SAN mage to the cap and see what happens from there. It may be that she becomes my main (I forgot how much fun mages are to play; my current highest mage is 54 and untouched for months!)

"many guilds have "main before alt" rules, not just for loot, but for raid slots"

Two or three examples where that does not apply, at least for us. Alt runs, basically the alts form the run, for the purpose of gearing alts. Your welcome to come as a main and /roll with everybody else but no preference.

Our 25 man runs if your specifically asked to bring a alt because of a gap, ie no rogues in the raid the you can bid your main dkp on most drops, but at the same time their is unspoken rule about things like BIS trinkets do go to mains.

Our 10 man heroic runs are generally chosen based on the player and we will move things around until we have the best makeup we can achieve. For example our example our first insanity kill in toc had 5 alts.